SimJournalist: Can a Game Teach You How to Win a Pulitzer?

I bumped into Brian Crecente, the managing editor of Kotaku, on the way to a demo of a game that neither of us had seen before. He seemed a bit apprehensive and out of sorts. Understandable, since he was the star of this game.

The demo was part of a panel at the Serious Games Summit, a segment of the Game Developers Conference dedicated to titles that are intended to be educational, build understanding and support for causes, etc. Some university researchers were presenting a Neverwinter Nights mod they had created that was supposed to teach students about the media. In a stroke of genius, they called their panel Being Brian Crecente: Using an Off-The-Shelf Role Playing Game to Teach Journalism.

It was brilliant because Crecente isn’t just a game blogger: he got his start in journalism as reporter on the crime beat at the Denver Post. (It was also a brilliant move for the academics to name the panel after Crecente because they knew it’d get written up on Kotaku, a game blog that scored 32 million page views last month. Free publicity!)

Crecente didn’t know what to make of the fact that he’s the now the ostensible protagonist of an edu-game. He said that on the flight to San Francisco for the conference, it occurred to him that this may well be his jump-the-shark moment. But he decided to check it out anyway.

The game was demoed by Nora Paul of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota. She starts by laying out the hurdles that academics face in trying to develop games. "How many of you are working at a university?" she asks, and many in the audience raise their hands. "Good, then you’ll feel my pain."

With the exception of people like Kurt Squire, who had success with a game designed to teach about the Revolutionary War, it’s been hard for academics to get a game made. First of all, it doesn’t seem like proper work to the rest of academia. "Most people interested in this are junior faculty, and games are not going to get you very far along the tenure track," says Paul.

Another big hassle that makers of serious games face is securing funding. At a time when most triple A games cost $15 to $20 million, Paul and her fellow researchers had to design Being Brian Crecente on less than $10K. The money was drawn from an info tech fee assessed to U Michigan students, and it went to hiring a consultant, paying a student assistant, and buying 20 copies of Neverwinter Nights, which the journalism edu-game was built on top of.

Paul says that the intention was to use the game as part of an actual course at the University of Minnesota, Info for Mass Communication. It would teach students about the information gathering and decision making processes that a newspaper journalist might go through. The developers of the game actually consulted Crecente for tips on good reporting practices.

Paul adds that she consulted with her gamer son, who gave her a great insight into how playing a game is different from taking a test. "The fun is in the trial and error, in failing and going down the wrong path and seeing what happens," she said. "It’s the reverse of what most educators think."

The game presents players with a scenario that they have to learn more about: a train has hit a truck carrying anhydrous ammonia, causing injuries and a mass evacuation. Paul says, "We had to create the virtual city of Harperville, with ten different buildings and 22 characters" including government officials, railroad men, health care workers, and the victims. Players come up with an angle for their story (health public safety, transportation safety, environmental), and start collecting background info (i.e., conduct interviews in the form of text-based conversation trees).

Paul says that they were pleased with the result, though there were some bugs and bad design choices. Students didn’t like that their avatar didn’t have a cell phone, and needed to go back to the office every time they wanted to call a source and set up an interview. The sword and sorcery trappings of NWN were minimized, but still present. For instance, the editor character is built off an ogre-like NWN character type. (Some reporters who consulted on the game said that seemed entirely appropriate to them.)

Due to a programming bug, the ogre/editor will block the virtual Crecente’s exit from the newspaper office, and the only way to leave is to do battle hand let him kill you.

It looks kludgey and low tech, which Paul freely cops to. The team at the University of Minnesota are reworking the game on a newer engine. Still, the game seems like it has the potential to be a useful teaching tool. It also got me thinking about the fact that there’s never been a game about the journalistic process. (Hmm, I guess the protagonist of the underrated classic Beyond Good & Evil is a journalist, though her work usually hewed pretty closely to typical stealth gameplay.)

Crecente will hopefully write up his detailed reaction to the demo on Kotaku, and I’ll provide a link if and when he does. [UPDATE: he’s posted his response here.] I did get a preview of his impressions, though. At the end of every GDC session, attendees are asked to fill out a short form rating the quality of the presentation and the speakers. I peeked at Crecente’s form. In response to the question "How relevant was the topic to you?," he gave the session the highest possible score.